The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 6/23/14: We Lie, We Cheat, We Feels

– This week’s title is a +1’d comment from With Leather reader Gratliff. If you don’t follow our live threads, you’re missing out on a lot of good stuff. I can only fit 10 of the 2,000ish comments in here.

For the record, if you follow Lana on Instagram (and why wouldn’t you) It’s kinda like that suggestion you made. It’s a bunch of her and Rusev in different places saying how unimpressive they are (they’ve gone to Times Square, a Clippers game etc)

Sooo, what’s with all the stupid love of that whole angle with Vickie and that music last night? I mean, his stuff in WCW is great (every PPV match he wrestled in 95 or 96 was pretty golden), but his WWE run seemed lackluster.

And has anyone really appreciated Vickie in the past 3 or so years. She had one, shrilling typecast about her and that was it. This reminds me of when a bit actor that in a movie we loved 10 or 15 years ago dies and everyone gets their “fonds” in a bunch. If this is really her contract being up, I say good riddance.

Obvious troll, but since I missed out on Disco Inferno last night, lemme take the bait:

*ahem*

What you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

“HIs WWE run was lack luster” Come on, compared to his WCW run?! You’re kidding, right?! Eddie was a joke in WCW. Hell, one of WCWs biggest mistakes EVER was letting him walk right out of Atlanta and up into Titan Towers.

Wrestling kind of sucked during the era when he was a headliner 10 years ago. And I don’t mean his entire run in WCW. His cruiserweight stuff early on was the best of his career. But a god damn lowrider?! That’s the kind of gimmicky stuff that would draw the ire of all the PC wrestling fans out there.

Eddie was great, no question. I’ll never forget his super-early matches with Benoit in WCW. But Eddie also benefits from the same nostalgia that makes people think Kurt Cobain was the second coming of the fucking Beatles. Dying young makes a person at least 50% better than they actually were.

The Eddy is Cobain analogy makes very little sense. Eddy had twelve years worth of matches (hell, 16 years if you want to count his early NWA stuff which was green but still good) in a variety of styles and in different eras. That’s pretty damned Beatles-esque to me.

But here is the thing, even in all those years and all of those matches in all of those different organizations ten of his best twenty are in the WWE . His stuff with Edge, Angle, even RVD and with both Chavo and Tajiri as partners and even versus JBL were all better than a lot of his stuff in WCW or ECW. His Benoit matches were better in WWE, too. He had more diverse opponents than in any other organization, as well.

Sure, I can’t disagree with any of that. Eddie was fun to watch (even though I didn’t personally care for the low-rider, and all the “mama cita” this and that stuff in WWE). And I’m sure everyone who ever worked with him would call him one of their favorite opponents.

Here’s what I meant: Look at HBK today. Everyone understands he’s one of the best ever, but we still make fun of him. He dresses like an extra on Duck Dynasty, has a lazy eye, he was selfish as fuck before he “found God,” etc. But if Shawn had died in 1998, rather than just retiring for a few years, he’d be like Eddie– someone that, if you made fun of him, or dared say he wasn’t amazing, people would get angry at you. That’s what I meant by the Cobain effect– he was great, he wasn’t THE GREATEST, and he wasn’t above criticism.

I guess here is where we part then because while I agree that no performer of any kind is above criticism (and yes the overplaying of a stereotype is annoying, especially early on with Chyna and the GED stuff) I do think he was the greatest of all time and it wasn’t because he died. It was because of a decade and a half of high level performance.

I don’t know, I don’t think HBK would have been above criticism. The guy was that much of a dickbag. Pretty much everyone hated him and even fans were realizing what was up.

I do agree with the idea to a fault, though, especially regarding Nirvana. I loved Nevermind and not a whole hell of a lot else. Nirvanas songs were so frequently about nothing and stream of conscious; you can get away with some of that, but not all the time. But this is all just my opinion; as far as grunge goes I’ve always preferred Alice in Chains.

As for Eddie… disagree entirely. The guy was amazing in WWE. I mean, he was obviously great back in his WCW days, but he clearly hadn’t evolved in quite the way he would later. Whether you like the low riders, mama cita or whatnot, it was an evolution and a character he played to a hilt, which went along with his fantastic wrestling and fantastic matches to make for a very memorable figure. I’d argue that, of the four who jumped to the WWF and were known as the Radicalz, he was the one who turned out to be the total package of the group. He could wrestle, he had character, he could talk and he could even pull off comedy.

Ziggler and BNB for that match
Bo for being Bo
Titus for being a perfect pissed off guy for Bo
Byron for actually reacting to Dust and Dust
Goldie and Stardust for going all in on this
Vickie for being Vickie.
Dat Kane spear
Someone on the announce team who laughed at the butterfingers comment

I was afraid of that segment all the time – is Vince gonna do the vomit joke part 2? – but they played it out well. It was even harder to live up to the standard when the Guerrero entrance theme was first played but they managed to outdo it. Steph was on point with the flow of events all along too. She made it gold.

There are a few acceptable responses when asked who the greatest professional wrestler of all time, but for me it will always and forever be Eddy Guerrero. I didnt watch this until today and I knew what happened ahead of time. When the music hit, I welled up. I am not embarrassed about that at all. Great work, Brandon.

The thing is that Lawler is old and old men should not have sexual desires. If they do have them they get labelled deviants, creeps, RAPISTS etc. (on the internet, by white twentysomethings). OH MY GOD HE LOOKED AT HER ASS WHAT A SICK, DEPRAVED LUNATIC. Gimme a break.

Ugh, there’s also the issue of professionalism. How would your coworkers respond if you not only got caught checking out their ass but then retweeting a picture of you doing it? Oh, do they not appreciate being seen only as objects for sexual pleasure? WEIRD.

They Usos are pretty hapless in singles. Heck Jimmy attempted his superkick three times in the first match and hit it twice. That was a 90 second match and he had to go to the well three times. He needs to learn some other transitions.

If you have to go out, go out with class…Vickie did. she could’ve pipebombed every stupid , humiliating thing WWE has put her through, but she didn’t. 100% class. and the kiss up to Eddie had something in my eye. All class

Has anyone else noticed that WWE is disturbingly similar to Game of Thrones? You’ve got the McMahon family sitting on the Iron Throne, ruling over other noble families of wrestling (Guererro, Rhodes, etc). Vince is Tywin, insuring his dominance and legacy at all costs. His son Shane is Jamie, a talented wrestler who basically left the family without an heir. Stephanie is Cersei, a conniving egomaniac who would love to inherit the Iron Throne, but because of sexist inheritance laws can never do so. Instead she’s married off to another noble family (Triple H) so that he can rule in Vince’s stead. Meanwhile, the McMahon’s are quietly hemorrhaging money to the Iron Bank (investors).

Also, every time you find a new favorite character, they are brutally murdered by the Mountain (John Cena).

The Authority T-shirt also has a lion on it. I compared the shirt to the Lannister sigil after I saw Seth with the T-shirt last night, and the only appreciable difference is that the lion on the Authority T-shirt has a longer tail.

The Diva heels on commentary don’t understand how to get an angle over. They yell over the entire match and don’t know how to integrate what they need to get over with the story being told in the ring. It is very similar to heel Michael Cole. Heel announcing needs a light touch, like late 90s Lawler and Bobby Heenan. Heel commentating is like being god on futurama: if you do it right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

Cole absolutely earned a worst for not doing a thing to save that Cameron segment, and Paige a Best for being pretty damn good and quick on her feat and putting over (the rather rushed angle with) Naomi effectively.

I’m with PNG too. Once it became clear Cameron had nothing coherent to say and she just started stinking up the joint, they – Cole especially – just started trying to shut her down at every turn. Coles annoyance was so obvious it’s the thing I remember best about that whole match.

When the chucklehead announce team is throwing shade at you for awful commentary, it might be time to work on a few things. A lot of things, actually. Has she even improved much at all?

She would have done it anyway. She was interacting with Paige, who reacted to most of what Cameron said at the time. Cameron just couldn’t hold up her end and unless everyone at the table shut up I’m not a hundred percent sure how it could have been salvaged.

I agree with everybody else. They tried to shut her down and she’s just too dumb to be able to talk like that. I believe she said “I want the divas title” and “I don’t care about the divas title” within 30 seconds of each other.

WhenI heard Stephanie was coming out to ‘address’ Vickie at the top of the show, my brain just went SHAMING THE WIDOW and turned off. I didn’t watch it, I couldn’t. I never can, not since Trish Stratus barked like a dog. When word came back that Vickie fought back, I tuned in just to see the kiddie pool and my brain went NOPE again.

Thanks, Brandon, for some very important context and heartfelt words that will let me appreciate not just this segment, but something besides shame for an extraordinary career. o

I thought the same thing when Rollins was so adamant about getting Ambrose in the MITB match. After being the target of Steph and HHH In a matter of weeks the Shield have managed to get in both the match for the Heavyweight Championship and the MITB briefcase.

Beautiful work on the Vickie send-off. For me, the only thing that could possibly make the whole thing better would have been if Vickie had given us all a little call-back to her on-screen relationship with Edge and speared Steph into the pool of whatever-that-was. FSM knows after all the crap she’s put up with over the years, I’m hoping she finds something awesome and fulfilling to do with herself now.

It’s well established that Lawler is a stereotypical creepy old man, but getting apoplectic over a brief glance at Paige’s butt is a bit much. And if you watch the .gif, and not just look at the screencap, it’s a *glance*– down and back up.